The car had stopped with a jerk before a house which was certainly not our house. A stream of light from the open door flooded the pavement. On the steps stood Percival, the man I had that row with about the Square garden. On the pavement, his hand outstretched to open the car door, was he of the rasping voice.
“This is the owner,” said Willoughby, and he laughed quietly to himself. He always giggles in a crisis. I could have kicked him. But at the moment I was hurriedly debating whether I could possibly escape by the door on the far side without being seen. “A small thin man might have done it,” I thought. But, alas! I am neither small nor thin.
Then the door of the car opened and Willoughby stepped forth into the limelight, as it were. During the evening the dumb-crambo and such had rather dishevelled his hair, and a wisp of it now appeared from beneath the brim of an elderly Homburg hat pushed on to the back of his head. Under his arm was the banjo. On his face was that maddeningly good-natured smile of his.
“What are you doing in my car?” demanded the rasping voice.
Willoughby did not answer for a moment, but simply stood there smiling.
Then he said, “Entirely my fault. Your chauffeur is in no way to blame. The fact is we couldn’t get a taxi, and my brother being rather delicate——”
“What, another?” barked the rasper.
There was nothing for it. Acutely conscious as I was how emphatically my countenance, flushed by the exertions of the evening, belied Willoughby’s description of “delicate,” it was impossible for me to remain in the car, and I stepped heavily out.
“It rhymes with hat,” said Willoughby softly.